March 5, 2025
Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:1-2,12-17
Psalm 51:1-17
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
The context of this sermon is
100% written by a human
Bronnie Ware used to care for people every day as they faced their mortality. She was a palliative care nurse in Australia. People came into her life in the last six weeks or less of their lives. Like the compassionate palliative nurses I meet during my own pastoral visits, she held their hands, and monitored their pains, and made space for their families. For me, to be present with people at the very end – in those most truly, honest human moments - has always been a privilege as a pastor.
A few years ago, Bronnie began asking her patients for their final words of wisdom, and she began to hear their regrets. Five regrets, in particular, came up over and over. When I read those five regrets she published in her book, I recognized each one of them. For I too have heard them. When you hear them, they may also sound familiar. Maybe because they echo a regret that already dwells in your soul.
These are the five:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the time of reflection and contemplation in our journey of faith. These next 40 days are meant to bring clarity and resolution to the time we have left. This is why we begin on this quiet evening with a reminder of our mortality: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Who will you be when that moment comes?
Lent is our chance to consider this question, in partnership with God. To reflect on the regrets we may want to avoid at the end of our lives. You probably already know what they are or will be. So what stops us from changing our paths now?
A few years ago, a trio of American researchers set up an experiment. They asked 19,000 people, from the ages of 18 to 68, to predict how much they had changed in the previous decade, and then to predict how much they would change in the future. They were surprised by the result: both young and old all believed that they had changed significantly over the last ten years. But also everyone also believed that they would change little in the future. They saw the future only in terms of where and who they were today. The researchers called this “the end-of-history illusion.”
The consequence of this belief is probably obvious. We may think we know everything we need to know and stop being curious. We may assume the grief or sadness or stress we feel today will be with us, in the same way, forever. We may think we cannot change our personalities or habits. And when it comes to those regrets, this end-of-history illusion may convince us there is no way to fix them.
Now, consider the words that shape Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” On the one hand, we might say – that is extremely depressing; best to put it out of our minds”. Or we might say: “Great news, we are not dust yet. Our history is not at an end.”
In fact, our gospel is constantly reminding us that we can and do change, we can correct mistakes, and we can become better versions of ourselves. If it weren’t true, Jesus would presumably spend all his time teaching and learning from children. But the disciples were breadwinners. Mary and Martha were running a household. The taxpayer, we can assume, was not particularly young. Neither was the widow at the well.
And yet, Jesus approached each of them with lessons, and he himself learned from them as well; because human beings are meant to grow and change.
Perhaps the greatest risk of buying into the “end-of-history illusion” is that we base our decisions today on a fixed future. So we don’t take risks to change. We lose hope that broken relationships can be repaired. We believe that what we regret today will still be a regret when we take our last breath.
And yet, I can tell you that this is indeed an illusion. All the time, I see families that take the step to break away from a dysfunctional pattern; a system passed on to them by the generations before. All the time, I see couples that change the way they communicate and come to value one another in a new way. I see workaholics who decide to invest more in their families and friends. I see people who learn to get better at expressing their feelings more honestly.
I see people who choose to be happy.
It is not easy. It does not happen in a day. It takes reflection, intention, and mindfulness. But we have a guide in God and the gospel; and we have a time that is set aside to try – the next 40 days
Now, not every regret, sadly, can be corrected directly – the other person may refuse to participate, your parents may be gone from this earth. But there are very few regrets that cannot be, in some way, remedied. We can change by forgiving ourselves or others, by not repeating the same behaviour with our children, by choosing to say today the loving and kind things we wish we had said earlier. We can indeed change our futures. Our history does not end today.
Let this be our challenge for the next 40 days. To think intentionally about what story we want to tell at the end of days when we look back on our lives; what story, even that we want to tell about this day and this week, when we fall asleep each night. And then to set about writing that story into our lives right now. Set your priorities. Connect with the people you love. Be true to yourself.
From dust we came, and dust we shall become. This, we cannot change. But we are not dust yet.
Amen
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying - A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing is a 2011 book by Bronnie Ware
The 'end of history illusion' (EOHI; Quoidbach, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2013)
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